she cut my toenails the night befo… and in the morning she said, “I th… just lay here all day.” which meant she wasn’t going to wo… she was at my apartment—which mean…

old grey-haired waitresses in cafes at night have given it up, and as I walk down sidewalks of light and look into windows

I had been sleeping on a terrible mattress with the springs sticking into me for several years. That afternoon when I awakened I pulled the mattress off the bed, dragged it outside, and...

Somehow the money slipped away after that and soon I left the track and sat around in my apartment waiting for the 90 days’ leave to run out. My nerves were raw from the drinking and th...

Then some men came around and ripped out every other water– fountain. “Hey, look, what the hell are they doing?” I asked. I was in the 3rd class flat section. I walked over to another c...

it is justified all dying is justified all killing all death all passing, nothing is in vain

Bobby and Valerie came by and I introduced everybody around. “Valerie and I are going to take a vacation and rent rooms by the seashore in Manhattan Beach,” said Bobby. “Why don’t you g...

I pick up the skirt, I pick up the sparkling beads in black, this thing that moved once around flesh,

I only met one student at City College that I liked, Robert Becker. He wanted to be a writer. “I’m going to learn everything there is to learn about writing. It will be like taking a ca...

I’ve always had trouble with money. this one place I worked everybody ate hot dogs and potato chips

then there was the time in New Orleans I was living with a fat woman, Marie, in the French Quarter and I got very sick.